With its unforgiving descriptions of torture and violence, Yalo, written by Lebanese academic Elias Khoury, is not a novel for the faint-hearted.

Following a confusing start, it plunges the reader into the mind-bending world of Yalo, the alter ego of Daniel, a Lebanese Christian who is being interrogated and tortured for alleged crimes including rape.

Yalo

As the story of Daniel/Yalo’s upbringing in war-torn Beirut unfolds, merging Yalo’s memories with the brutal reality of life in prison, Khoury conveys a multi-layered world in which the norms of polite society do not apply.

As Yalo attempts to make sense of who he is and how his life has unfolded the way it has, Khoury creates a layered world of intense sensuality, appalling violence and survivor’s opportunism.

Some scenes, particularly those of torture, are almost unbearably graphic but Yalo’s quest to understand his identity in such a chaotic world makes the book’s heightened extremes entirely understandable.